All About Football League

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Zlatan Ibrahimović scored twice to guide Serie A leaders FC Internazionale Milano to a 2-1 win at Ascoli Calcio 1898, while second-placed AS Roma lost ground after being held 0-0 at ACF Fiorentina.

Adriano set up Ibrahimovic for both goals, in the 65th and 73rd minutes. The Swede also scored the winner in the derby against AC Milan last week.

Ibrahimović made it five goals from five league games as Inter took their points tally to 76 from 28 matches. The Swedish international opened the scoring on 65 minutes against Ascoli, volleying past Dimitrios Eleftheropoulos from Adriano's cross before the same combination created the visitors' second goal - this time Ibrahimović profiting from a mazy run by his strike partner. Massimo Bonanni scored a late penalty for the hosts but it came too late to affect the outcome.

Inter, which is undefeated with 24 wins and four draws, increased its lead over second-place AS Roma to 18 points. Inter needs only four more wins in the final nine rounds of the season to mathematically clinch the title.

Roma drew 0-0 with a Fiorentina team that played with only 10 men for an hour. Fiorentina goalkeeper Sebastien Frey, celebrating his 27th birthday, stymied several scoring chances and defender Manuel Pasqual hit the post with a free kick in the 49th.

After a two-week break for national team play, the Serie A resumes on March 31.

Manchester United Striker Wayne Rooney (captian at 2nd half)and fellow teammate South korean Park Ji Sung both scored 2 goals The game was only 10 minutes old when the England head coach's day took a serious downturn as Neville lay on the ground in agony after his left ankle crumpled under a challenge from Gary Speed.The Captian then was Ryan Giggs.

Ronaldo made three goals in the first 25 minutes at Old Trafford, two for Park Ji-sung and one for Wayne Rooney, who added his second before Bolton's Gary Speed converted a late penalty.

It was almost as if the visitors were so fearful of Ronaldo they dare not go near him, offering the winger a suicidal amount of space to run into every time he got the ball.

Only Jaaskelainen's save prevented Ronaldo getting his own name on the scoresheet for the 18th time this season, but the winger's exit at least allowed Alan Smith to experience Premiership combat for the first time since he suffered those horrific injuries at Liverpool in February last year.

He was soon celebrating too after setting Rooney free with a lobbed pass which allowed the United forward to outpace Ben Haim before belting an unstoppable volley past Jaaskelainen.

The goal involved precisely five touches from the moment the ball left the United area to it entering the Bolton net.

It took Rooney's tally for the season to 15, five of which have come against Allardyce's team, who bagged a late consolation when Gary Speed slotted home from the spot after Nemanja Vidic had harshly been ruled to have fouled Abdoulaye Faye so its 4-1 to manchester

Barcelona won their first away game in La Liga for four months with a 4-0 thrashing of Recreativo Huelva. In this game Samuel Eto'o scored two goals.

Gianluca Zambrotta and Lionel Messi added the other goals for the defending champion's first victory on the road in four months, The Associated Press reported.

Eto'o demonstrated his recovery from the serious right knee injury which sidelined him for four months to help inflict Recreativo's first defeat of 2007 at Nuevo Colombino stadium.

However, Barca coach Frank Rijkaard demonstrated that some people are never happy. "I'm happy with the result but not the way we played. The early goal facilitated our victory but we didn't play well," the Dutch coach said.]

One goal from Andrew Johnson in injury time gives Everton's win from Arsenal, 18 Mar 2007. Beaten in three cup competitions in last three weeks, the Gunners failed to take advantage of Liverpool’s dropped points earlier in the day when their rivals for third spot could only draw at Aston Villa.

After Liverpool's 0-0 draw to Villa, Arsenal knew they could not be knocked off of third spot and the win would of put a decent bit of space between Liverpool and the Gunners for the first time this year. Arsenal had faced Villa in the week and had won. the only changes that hemade to the side was dropping Denilson and Djouro for Rosicky and Toure.

Johnson looked up for it from the very begining of the game, a good omen for Steve McClaren who intends to play him up front against Israel in the week. He nearly put his team in front after eight minutes after a parry from Lehmann fell to him, however Lehmann managed to scuttle the ball away.

Johnson took his goals tally for the season to 11 in the Premiership with his left-foot strike from Mikel Arteta's 90th minute corner.